Mega Megane Moé
Hell and Heaven Moéltdown
Posts tagged Analysis
Viewing the world through giant-eyed spectacles
Aug 31st
A bit of a lighter post today as there’s a bit of a crunch for time.
Short story shorter being a highly impressionable student I have had many opportunities to laugh at how anime makes you look at ordinary things in a very strange manner (and coincidentally, cause ordinary people to look at you in a very strange manner). And now it’s time to share some of those ways, handily compiled in Mildly Amusing quiz format.
Some of these are actual trains of thought I’ve ridden but more of them are cleverly obvious disguised references to pretty much anything out there. A sign of your anime fandom may be how many you get.
And by anime fandom, I mean “amount of shows you watch that are the same as the ones I watch and/or have heard of.”
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Can fillers be filling?
Aug 29th
Paradoxes and deep posts are so much fun.
Fillers are quite often one of the most dreaded parts of anime that cause us to sigh, roll our eyes, press the fast forward button and/or maybe write a long drawn-out post complaining how this is the twentieth episode we’ve had with Absolutely Nothing Happening.
They come in many interesting if not always entertaining flavors such as The Beach Episode (pictured), The Convienently One Episode Long Conflict, And Now For Some Of Our Other Characters That Still Exist, and everyone’s favorite, The Recap.
Now naturally the entertainment value depends on many different things, such as originality, quality, and how many fillers you’ve seen in a row. But from a story perspective, I’ve always struggled with the stigma of filler as something completely devoid of content.
Maybe it’s a faulty definition of filler, but I’ve found that filler episodes, per se, may actually be necessary to the overarching feel of the series in the end in leaving a good impression. This may not be the case for more shonen material (Fights O’ The Week) or whatnot, but at least in my specialty genre, romance/harem/harem-likes, I almost find filler to be useful at times.
(Minor blatantly obvious spoilers for Da Capo and huge ending/plot spoilers for Shuffle ahead.)
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When Ends Are Nigh
Aug 20th
They always say there’s two sure things in life; death and taxes. The adage is quite the same for anime, except perhaps the sure things are a loli and a girl with breasts the size of her face.
Death in anime is very much applicable though as well; in not just the character sense but also in the series sense as well. Time tends to travel in the forward motion and so all anime series, with the possible exception of certain shonen series with 300+ episodes, eventually come to an end.
It’s definitely a conflicting time when one gets to the last few episodes of a long-running series. It’s often the most exciting and climatic point of the series; but on the same hand there’s that creeping sense of time passing by.
One episode left. 25 minutes. There’s the eyecatch. That’s what, 12 minutes? Wait, the last part’s probably an insert song. 8 minutes.
Tick tick tick.
Tick tick tick.
And before you know it, it’s all passed by. Game over. One can watch the series again over and over but there’s really nothing quite that matches the first viewing of a series. That sense of mystery, wondering what happens next, is gone. It’s not like one can never watch a series twice; but the first viewing is definitely the best.
And so, sometimes one would wish that some shows would just go on forever. Certainly some shows have the possibility to do it; slice-of-life shows can run on as long as 5-minute plots can keep getting produced.
But, to be like a cheesy sitcom, you get what you ask for. Would it be such a good idea to keep some anime going for eternity? Or would a definite ending be better?
Of course each argument has their merits but I would have to side with the side of conclusion. The fountain of youth may keep shows looking young, but there’s plenty of disadvantages to being young forever…
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Ten Steps to Filler Time
Aug 17th
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Connecting the Dots (and the Characters) in Anime
Aug 14th
In the recent anime season a certain harem lead who will pretend to be unnamed has come under much fire for being a cold-hearted, brainless jerk who thinks with his crotch instead of his head.
Now the purpose of this post is not to defend this guy or to add fuel to the burning of his effigy but rather to address a different point often brought up in the discussion of this character.
“I stopped watching the anime because of this guy.”
It’s a strange thought; that a character repulses one so much that they can’t even stand the sight of him (or her, of course) anymore.
The core of today’s question, to get to the point, is whether an anime has to have likeable characters, per se, in order to be, well, watchable.
Is it necessary, for one to be able to connect with the characters or plot of anime anime to make it enjoyable.
Of course, it is always preferred to have these aspects present, but in the absence of such factors, does the show shrivel up and die like a plant without water?
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